Awkward! Greenpeace gloss over survey showing majority support for fracking

The IGas Energy exploratory gas drilling site is seen at at Barton Moss near Manchester in northern England. (Reuters/Phil Noble) / Reuters

Greenpeace attempted to hide the results of a survey that indicates more people support fracking than oppose it in a seemingly innocuous footnote within its press release.

The embarrassing
statistic that 42 percent of people supported fracking, while
only 35 were against the drilling technique, was placed in a
footnote of the campaign group’s data.

The survey published by the group was released in an attempt to
rally support for the anti-fracking movement, but the figures
they unwittingly discovered suggest support for the method of
shale gas extraction is far more popular than government surveys
have suggested.

Only 24 percent admitted to supporting fracking in the latest
Public Attitude Tracker survey from the Department of Energy and
Climate Change, published in February this year. This survey
notes that a similar proportion was opposed to the measure, and
half were undecided.

ComRes, who conducted the poll for Greenpeace, asked around 2,000
people their opinions on fracking, which they described as the
process where “natural gas is extracted … by
drilling a hole, creating a tiny explosion to fracture the rock
and then injecting water, sand and chemicals at high pressure to
allow gas to be released.”

It found that fracking had the grey vote, with support from those
aged 65 and over at 58 percent. It also discovered that men were
almost twice as likely to be in favor of drilling for shale gas
as women, with popularity among men at 56 percent but among women
only 29 percent.

Rather than focus on fracking’s popularity in its press release,
Greenpeace chose to examine the impacts of politicians supporting
fracking.

They said candidates would lose more voters than they would gain
if they openly declared support for fracking in the local area.

The group also found nearly a third of voters would be less
likely to back a candidate who supported fracking, much higher
than the 13 percent who said they would back a candidate due to
their support for the drilling technique.

Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth have asked candidates to sign
a “frack-free promise.” Some 100 Labour candidates have
signed the pledge, along with 104 LibDems and over 400 Green
candidates. No Conservatives have so far signed.

Ken Cronin, chief executive of UK Onshore Oil and Gas, the
fracking industry body, said that “when presented with the
facts about the safety and low environmental impact of shale gas
operations, British people will support onshore oil and gas
exploration.”

Countering the criticism, Greenpeace said: “Others may have
decided not to publish [the findings] at all. We did put them in
our release and they are publicly available.”